Friday, October 19, 2012

Character Counts

Imagine opening a parent-teacher conference with “Let’s discuss your child’s character.” The first time I heard this prompt was a few
weeks ago at the PwC KWHS
Seminar for High School Educators on Business and Financial Responsibility.
The presentation was an attempt to tie in character traits to financial
behavior. The presenter used the KIPP Character Report Card as the foundation
for his presentation, which emphasized the content area I teach.

Earlier in the year I wrote an opinion piece for the Washington Post on the
dangers of not teaching personal finance to kids. Thesefrightening
statistics illustrate the consequences of not equipping our students with
basic personal finance tools and concepts — and Americans know it. Eighty-two
percent of American parents agree that personal finance should be a graduation
requirement, and 89% of teachers feel the same way.

Personal finance is still in the infancy stages of
development in our schools. A challenge of teaching the course well is
preparing students to put knowledge into action. I enjoy using games and
simulations to bridge content with behavior, I even created my own. Although I have yet to assign a
grade to the character traits sometimes necessary to making an understood
financial choice as
KIPP does.

Relative to personal finance, the character traits discussed
at the seminar that stood out for me were grit, self-control, and kindness.
Grit is defined as the ability to finish what one starts; complete something
despite obstacles; a combination of persistence and resilience. Self-control is
defined as the ability to regulate what one feels and does; being
self-disciplined. Kindness is defined as doing favors and good deeds for others; helping them; taking care of them.

You need grit to balance a budget on poverty wages. It takes
grit to manage job losses or deaths in the family. It takes self-control to
restrain from using your credit card to buy something now you really cannot
afford. You need self-control, which as you can see in this
video is not always innate, to save and wait to buy something later. Living
a family budget that prioritizes other members of your family before yourself takes genuine kindness.

Teaching to the whole child is challenging and personal. Most
would agree that someone’s character is one of the most important factors in
their own success. At a minimum, our students should understand what character
traits are necessary to reach their goals. So although a character report card
may not feel right to me, neither does an education that all together avoids
developing a student’s character.

About Me

My wife and I are raising our three children and dog in Kenwood, Ohio. I am a teacher and outreach director deeply passionate about financial education in our schools. I enjoy sharing financial literacy resources fellow educators can incorporate into their classrooms. I have become particularly interested in behavioral finance.